


lvl4 thief lfg, pst

by akisazame



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, MMORPGs, souyoweek2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7237465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>W to [Tomoe]: take that chie</p>
<p>W from [Tomoe]: what now???</p>
<p>W to [Tomoe]: i didnt need u<br/>W to [Tomoe]: i made a freind he said my char is cute</p>
<p>W from [Tomoe]: sec<br/>W from [Tomoe]: boss</p>
            </blockquote>





	lvl4 thief lfg, pst

**Author's Note:**

> Q: when you only have time to write one Souyo Week fic, which prompt should you choose?  
> A: all of them
> 
> for Souyo Week 2016 Day 1 (Confession), Day 2 (Alternate Universe & Long Distance), Day 3 (Video Games), Day 5 (Jealousy), Day 6 (Holiday), and Day 7 (Shadows)
> 
> (ps this work has custom color formatting!!)

Yosuke was getting very, very tired of dying.

W to [Tomoe]: chie wth y r these shadows kickin my ass

W from [Tomoe]: uh where are you???

W to [Tomoe]: idk i went left frm the start zone

W from [Tomoe]: omg u idiot!! that's a level 50 zone!!!!!  
W from [Tomoe]: go back right now!!!!

W to [Tomoe]: o  
W to [Tomoe]: can u help me

W from [Tomoe]: i'm in a dungeon  
W from [Tomoe]: ask for help in zone chat

Yosuke was also getting very, very tired of Chie not actually wanting to play Innocent Sin Online with him.

[Zone] [Jiraiya]: hello?? im new can sum1 help me

He leaned back in his computer chair and crossed his arms, staring at his character's dead body while he waited for a response in zone chat. He waited a very, very long time, which was probably only a minute or two, but a minute or two was a very, very long time to look at a character's dead body. It was a little perverse, actually. Yosuke was beginning to regret making a cute girl character.

He was about ready to give up and log out when he received another whisper.

W from [Izanagi]: loc?

W to [Izanagi]: wuts "loc"

W from [Izanagi]: nevermind

Yosuke scrunched up his nose. "Why bother whispering me if you weren't gonna--"

[Izanagi] has invited you to a party.

Yosuke blinked, then clicked Accept.

[Party] [Izanagi]: great! now I can see you on my map. :)  
[Party] [Izanagi]: "loc" means location, by the way. your coordinates are displayed under the minimap.  
[Party] [Izanagi]: be right there!

It only took a few minutes for "Izanagi" to show up at Yosuke's character's perverse corpse. "Izanagi," it turned out, was a level 50 paladin. He began to cast a spell, and then Yosuke's death pop-up turned into a resurrection one.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: thx sooooooo much

[Party] [Izanagi]: no problem. how'd you get all the way out here?

Suddenly Yosuke felt very, very dumb. His first instinct was to blame Chie for inviting him to play this dumb game and then abandoning him, and he got halfway through typing it out before furiously backspacing.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: wrong turn i gess

[Party] [Izanagi]: it happens. :)  
[Party] [Izanagi]: exploring can be fun too! but be careful of the Shadows.  
[Party] [Izanagi]: the bigger ones are higher level. if you look on the nameplate and the level has ??, then they're too high for you to fight. :)

Yosuke blinked again. Why hadn't Chie told him all this stuff?

[Party] [Jiraiya]: wow thx man  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: thats rly helpful srsly

[Party] [Izanagi]: no problem. we were all new once. :)  
[Party] [Izanagi]: hold on a sec.

"Izanagi" cast another spell, and suddenly he was mounted on some kind of weird chimera creature.

[Party] [Izanagi]: right-click on me :)

Yosuke was pretty sure one of those chimera things had killed him at some point, but Izanagi hadn't given him any reason to mistrust him, so he did as he was told, and his tiny girl character jumped onto the chimera's back, nestled right behind Izanagi. As soon as he was safely on the creature's back, the creature began galloping away.

It had taken a couple of hours of playing for Yosuke to get himself so thoroughly lost in the level 50 area, but it only took a few minutes for Izanagi to escort him back to the starting area on the back of his weird chimera mount. Once they were safely in town, the chimera vanished, depositing the two of them on the ground.

[Party] [Izanagi]: safe and sound. :)

Before Yosuke could start typing his gratitude, a dialogue box popped up.

[Izanagi] would like to trade with you.

The dialogue box was quickly filled with a stack of 20 Life Stones, a stack of 20 Goho-Ms, and 20,000 Macca. Izanagi's side of the box lit up with a big green check mark.

[Party] [Izanagi]: click "accept"!

[Party] [Jiraiya]: whoa dude this is 2 much  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: r u sure  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: do u want nething back

[Party] [Izanagi]: your friendship? :)

Despite the fact that he was alone in his room, staring at someone's avatar on a computer screen, Yosuke felt his whole face heat up.

He clicked Accept.

[Party] [Izanagi]: good luck!! I have to log off. homework. :(  
[Party] [Izanagi]: let's play together again sometime!

[Izanagi] has left the party.  
[Izanagi] has sent you a friend request.

Yosuke clicked Accept again.

W from [Izanagi]: by the way, your character is very cute. ;)

It took two full minutes of flustered typing before Yosuke could compose a response.

W to [Izanagi]: lol thx  
Message not sent. [Izanagi] is offline.

Yosuke let out a long breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Now that he wasn't worrying about what to say to Izanagi, or what Izanagi was thinking about him, he felt strangely triumphant. He'd made a friend in Innocent Sin Online, all on his own! Take that, Chie!

W to [Tomoe]: take that chie

W from [Tomoe]: what now???

W to [Tomoe]: i didnt need u  
W to [Tomoe]: i made a freind he said my char is cute

W from [Tomoe]: sec  
W from [Tomoe]: boss

Yosuke rolled his eyes. He didn't need Chie's approval anyway.

\--

Over the next few days, Yosuke logged on Innocent Sin Online every day and checked his friends list, but he only ever saw Chie. "Izanagi," it seemed, was perpetually offline. Chie, on the other hand, was perpetually in dungeons and therefore completely incapable of offering assistance to her wayward friend.

W to [Tomoe]: chie pls

W from [Tomoe]: sec  
W from [Tomoe]: boss

W to [Tomoe]: u kno if u helped me lvl then i cld fight bosses w/ u

There was a long pause.

W from [Tomoe]: no u couldn't

W to [Tomoe]: wth y

W from [Tomoe]: monks and thiefs share gear  
W from [Tomoe]: u'll take my loot, jerk

W to [Tomoe]: then y did u tell me 2 play!!!!!

Chie never responded. Yosuke checked his friends list one last time, then logged off.

\--

Although he was beginning to lose hope, Yosuke logged on Innocent Sin Online after his shift at Junes on Sunday night and was thrilled to see that, finally, Izanagi was online.

Except that he was in Void Quest.

And so was Chie.

W to [Tomoe]: ok so wierd question

W from [Tomoe]: do u ask ne other kind

W to [Tomoe]: shut up  
W to [Tomoe]: r u in void quest w/ izanagi

W from [Tomoe]: how did u know???

W to [Tomoe]: bcuz hes on my freind list

W from [Tomoe]: ohhhhhh  
W from [Tomoe]: let me guess, he helped u the other day??

Yosuke had a sudden feeling of foreboding.

W to [Tomoe]: yea y

W from [Tomoe]: he helped me when i 1st started playing 2  
W from [Tomoe]: he's a rly good tank we do dungeons all the time  
W from [Tomoe]: r u jealous???

The churning feeling that Yosuke had in his gut was definitely not jealousy. That would be stupid.

W to [Tomoe]: no

W from [Tomoe]: don't get mad i'm just teasing u  
W from [Tomoe]: sec  
W from [Tomoe]: boss

It was stupid, Yosuke told himself, to think that he'd somehow been special to Izanagi. It shouldn't be surprising that Yosuke wasn't the first newbie that Izanagi had helped. He probably gave everyone 20,000 Macca and a stack of Goho-Ms. That was just the kind of guy Izanagi was.

Yosuke had his mouse cursor hovering over the Log Out button when the game client chimed.

W from [Izanagi]: hey! Tomoe told me you were online. :)

Yosuke was surprised, then embarrassed, then annoyed, all in the span of two seconds.

W to [Izanagi]: thot u were fightin a boss

W from [Izanagi]: it's okay. I have a huge threat lead. and if Tomoe catches up she can facetank for a bit. ;)  
W from [Izanagi]: sorry, I didn't mean to get all jargon-y.  
W from [Izanagi]: do you want to group up when I'm done in here? quests go faster with two. :)

"He's nice to everyone," Yosuke muttered to himself. "That's what Chie said."

Even so, he felt a smile spread across his face.

W to [Izanagi]: hell yea

\--

After that, Izanagi was online every single day. Almost as soon as Yosuke logged on, he'd get an enthusiastic whisper from Izanagi, followed quickly by a party invite. Just as Izanagi had said, quests did go faster with two, and it was easy to forget how boring and repetitive grinding experience was when you had someone to chat with. Izanagi was surprisingly easy to talk to, and it wasn't long before Yosuke found himself sharing all kinds of stupid details about his life, all while Izanagi patiently listened and gave incredibly sensible advice.

If Izanagi were a girl, Yosuke realized abruptly one night, he would have a very, very big crush.

But he was 95% sure Izanagi was not a girl. Having a crush on a boy was stupid. Having a crush on a boy he'd never even met was extra stupid.

That was how, after three weeks and a total number of hours that Yosuke would never admit to in mixed company, Yosuke's cute girl character finally reached level 50.

[Party] [Izanagi]: congratulations!!! :)

[Party] [Jiraiya]: ty ty ty  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: srsly dude i cldnt have done it w/out u

[Party] [Izanagi]: that's not true! it just would've taken longer. ;)

[Party] [Jiraiya]: no way i wldve quit  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: this game is hard

[Party] [Izanagi]: that's why we make friends. :)

Yosuke reminded himself that he was 95% sure Izanagi was not a girl. He reminded himself that having a crush on a boy was stupid. He reminded himself that having a crush on a boy he'd never even met was extra stupid. But all those reminders didn't stop his face from turning as red as his jeans.

His fingers flew across the keyboard of their own volition, and he closed his eyes when he hit enter.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: r u a girl irl

After a moment of sitting in darkness, he realized he'd never see the answer if he didn't open his eyes.

[Party] [Izanagi]: no.

Yosuke bit his lip.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: me either

[Party] [Izanagi]: I figured as much.

It wasn't like Yosuke had been pretending to be a girl, so he wasn't surprised by the answer so much as the certainty of it.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: wut how did u kno

[Party] [Izanagi]: generally, girls who play this game don't make characters with the breast slider maxed out.

Yosuke typed out an impassioned defense of his decision to give Jiraiya an ample bosom, but deleted it.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: o

All of Yosuke's twisting trains of thought were instantly derailed by a bright flash on his screen, followed by a loud bang.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: wtf

[Party] [Izanagi]: oh! the event is starting.

There was another flash and a bang, followed by another, then another.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: wut event

[Party] [Izanagi]: the Brightfire Festival! it's a festival for the start of summer.  
[Party] [Izanagi]: tilt your camera up and you can see the fireworks. :)

[Party] [Jiraiya]: but its not summer

[Party] [Izanagi]: not irl, but it is in-game.  
[Party] [Izanagi]: besides, it's close enough, isn't it? my school lets out next week, at least.  
[Party] [Izanagi]: Tomoe said hers does too. you know her irl, right? do you go to the same school?

Yosuke wasn't sure why he was getting annoyed, but it hit a breaking point when Izanagi brought up Chie. It couldn't be that he was jealous, because he had never been jealous to start with. Besides, Izanagi had only played Innocent Sin Online with Yosuke for the past two weeks. So why was Yosuke so mad?

[Party] [Jiraiya]: this isnt fair u kno

[Party] [Izanagi]: ...what?

[Party] [Jiraiya]: u kno all this stuf abt me  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: but idk nething abt u  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: ur just izanagi 2 me

[Party] [Izanagi]: oh.  
[Party] [Izanagi]: is that a problem?

To Yosuke, it seemed so obvious that he couldn't believe he had to explain it. His fingers moved faster than his thoughts.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: well yea  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: bcuz were freinds  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: and i rly like u  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: but ur lik a stranger u kno

He was in the middle of typing another sentence when he saw Izanagi's reply.

[Party] [Izanagi]: you really like me?

Oh no. He hadn't meant it like that.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: as a freind ofc  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: i mean lik i said ur a stranger

[Party] [Izanagi]: and what if we weren't strangers?

This was not how Yosuke had meant for this to go.

[Party] [Izanagi]: my real name is Souji. what's yours?

This wasn't how he'd meant for this to go _at all._

[Party] [Jiraiya]: im yosuke

[Party] [Izanagi]: nice to meet you, Yosuke.  
[Party] [Izanagi]: I'm a second year in high school and I live in Tokyo.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: im a 2nd yr 2  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: me and chie live in the boonies tho  
[Party] [Jiraiya]: uh i mean me and tomoe

[Party] [Izanagi]: haha, gotcha.

There was a long pause. Yosuke was too embarrassed to figure out what to say next. He hadn't meant to make this weird, but then he had, and he didn't know how to fix it. He kept typing words and then deleting them. He was glad Innocent Sin Online didn't have a typing indicator, or else Izana-- Souji would be able to see his indecision.

[Party] [Izanagi]: so are we not strangers anymore?  
[Party] [Izanagi]: are we still friends?

Yosuke stared at those words for a long time, then scrolled back up through the conversation to read it again. He realized abruptly that, as soon as he'd started this dumb argument, Souji's cheerful emoji had stopped.

Yosuke realized he didn't like that one bit.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: yea ofc

For the briefest moment, he put himself in Souji's shoes. What would Izanagi have said to cheer Yosuke up?

[Party] [Jiraiya]: dont worry i still like u

He regretted it as soon as he hit enter. He held his breath.

[Party] [Izanagi]: as a friend, right? ;)  
[Party] [Izanagi]: don't worry, I won't make a virtual pass at you.

He let out the breath he was holding, but something in Yosuke's stomach coiled up like a snake. He wasn't sure if it was relief or disappointment.

[Party] [Izanagi]: if we ever met irl though...

Yosuke ducked his head to hide his blush before he remembered that he was alone in his room, looking at a character on a computer screen.

Well, that answered that, he supposed.

[Party] [Jiraiya]: ur just saying that bcuz my char's a cute girl

[Party] [Izanagi]: I assure you, that is not true. :)

There was another flash and a bang. Yosuke tilted his camera up to watch the fireworks.

  
  


((coda))

W to [Jiraiya]: i can't believe u met izanagi irl!!!  
W to [Jiraiya]: and didn't tell me????

W from [Jiraiya]: ugh chie  
W from [Jiraiya]: u wldve ruined it

W to [Jiraiya]: that's not true!!

W from [Jiraiya]: omg no u dont get it

W to [Jiraiya]: what don't I get??

W from [Jiraiya]: dont make me say it

W to [Jiraiya]: say what??  
W to [Jiraiya]: yosuke ur being so yosuke  
W to [Jiraiya]: just spit it out

W from [Jiraiya]: look u wldnt want me goin out w/ u and yukiko san

W to [Jiraiya]: o  
W to [Jiraiya]: m  
W to [Jiraiya]: g

W from [Jiraiya]: shut up

W to [Jiraiya]: izanagi and jiraiya sittin in a tree

W from [Jiraiya]: omg sHUT UP

W to [Jiraiya]: k i s s i n g  
Message not sent. [Jiraiya] is offline.


End file.
